Written By Bill Michael
Marketing Analyst
Xerox Corporation

You know them: hearing, sight, touch, smell, taste. At drupa, each of your senses will be put to great use, as you will:

• Hear: The excitement of the 1000s of attendees in the print industry having conversations on a variety of topics.
• See: Technology and software that represents the future of our industry
• Touch: Printed samples with specialty media, innovative finishing, and special toner
• Smell: toner, ink and paper in the air as you walk by every vendors stand.
• Taste: German cuisine (maybe for the first time) and perhaps a few brands of German beer with some friends and colleagues.

At the Xerox stand (Hall 8b), your senses can best be used by seeing and touching the applications that we’ll be showcasing live in our stand, including many Best-of-the-Best winners. These winners include: IOS (Digital and Offset), Mediaware (Digital Packaging), MBA Group Limited (TransPromo), Telemail, S.L. (TransPromo), Easy Print (Photo Publishing), Printshop (Photo Publishing). Three additional winners include:

	DG3 Europe Limited (Best Overall Solution, case study) The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, the largest youth charity in the UK, wanted to enable their award winners to create and order personalized Achievement Packs online. They approached DG3 Europe Limited, who mapped out an end-to-end solution using FreeFlow Process Manager™ and the iGen4 with a Xerox FreeFlow™ Print Server – resulting in a 637% increase in usage of the achievement pack.
	De Budelse (Digital Packaging, case study) Recognizing the growing area of digital packaging, De Budelse built FotoChoco.nl to enable orders of personalized boxes of chocolate. Using the iGen4 and FreeFlow Print Server, they were able to sell over 11,000 boxes of chocolate. (your sense of taste!)
	CopyCat (Direct Marketing, case study) Using the Xerox Color 1000 Press, CopyCat used clear dry ink and personalized cross media to drive new business. The campaign generated a 10% response rate and helped bring in 20 new orders from new customers.

Please stop by Xerox Stand in Hall 8B to see and touch these great applications. We’ll find other ways to exercise your other senses!

Written by:
Howard Fenton
Senior Technology Consultant
NAPL

There are important changes in SEO or search engine optimization since Google’s announcement that their search criteria is placing more emphasis on blogs, backlinks and multiple media (videos).

On John Foleys panel at the MFSA Spring Conference, Wes Powell from TMR Direct talked about how they use blogs as their major marketing focus. They have been blogging for a while and today they plan blogs two months in advance.

As a result, when they looked at their search engine optimization recently they were #2 on the Google list. One thing that was not discussed and is often overlooked is what determines success in blogs is storytelling.

As anyone who has ever Tweeted knows one of the greatest challenges is the ability to tell a story or capture someone’s attention in very few words. Those who succeed master the art of storytelling. Let’s face it – we are a culture of storytellers.

Look at the most influential CEO’s, or most popular TV anchors, your favorite newspaper or magazine columnists or your favorite actors, you will probably see that a common denominator is that they are all good storytellers.

They may choose controversial words, emotional words, or words that emit a vision, but they craft their message well. We can read books or take classes on the effectiveness of social media, but the key is telling a good story.

Here are a few tips to craft your message well:

• understand your key message
• pique their curiosity
• recognize why it’s important to your audience
• elicit interest or emotion
• engage your audience with your message
• motivate feedback

On the panel at MFSA, many people talked about the challenge of selling new services to traditional clients. Blogging, webinars and online video were discussed as ways of driving new prospects to their websites. Prospects that become customers were willing to invest in ongoing campaigns which resulted in higher billing rates and profitability when compared to traditional services.

How are you going to attract new clients to your website?

Howard Fenton is a Senior Technology Consultant at NAPL. Howie advises commercial printers, in-plants, and manufacturers on workflow management, operations, digital services, and customer research. He is a paid contributor to this blog.

Written by:
Howard Fenton
Senior Technology Consultant
NAPL

As we prepare to publish our fourth Digital Services White paper, we are analyzing the data and following up with phone interviews trying to figure out what is working and what is not working. One question we ask on many studies is “What’s expected to grow the fastest”? It is hoped that the answer will help better identify changes in customer demand and identify new growth opportunities.

It is also interesting to compare these answers over time, to see if there are any trends developing. So let’s take a brief look at how our latest results compare to the results of the 2006 State of the Industry report.

• In the 2006 data as in the 2012 data, variable data printing was the number one answer growing from 57% in 2006 to 62% this year.
• The number 2 answer this year was a tie between web to print and static digital printing at 41%. In comparision static digital printing was the number four answer in 2006 at 40% and web to print the #9 answer at 19%
• Mailing dropped from the #2 spot in 2006 at 44% to the #6 spot this year at 26%.
• Four-color or more litho dropped from #3 at 43% in 2006 to number #10 at 18%.
• Fulfillment dropped from its #4 spot at 39% in 2006 to #7 position at 22%.

Looking at this comparison speaks volumes about the changes in the industry. Six years ago, the digital changes in our industry were just starting to be recognized; at that point, the traditional services were just starting to slow. As we look at this comparison, we see clearly the decline in 4C litho, mailing and fulfillment and the increase in web-to-print, marketing/cross media services, and database management.

After listening to presentations at the Vision 3 Summit and MFSA recently, I heard two metaphors that stood out and described the impact of these changes. One was “get on board the training, it is leaving the station and if you don’t get on the train you will be left behind.” The other was “An ostrich with its head in the sand is just as blind to opportunity as to disaster.”

Two questions to consider. Is your head in the sand? What are you doing to get on board the digital train?

Howard Fenton is a Senior Technology Consultant at NAPL. Howie advises commercial printers, in-plants, and manufacturers on workflow management, operations, digital services, and customer research. He is a paid contributor to this blog.

Written by Christina Vullo, Social Media Marketing Analyst at Xerox Corporation

Today, more and more businesses are creating Facebook pages as a way to market themselves online; but with so many new pages being created, the question arises “How can a print service provider use Facebook to successfully promote their business?”

Peter Muir shows how in his book Print Providers Guide to Social Media.  According to Muir, the first thing print service providers should focus on when implementing a Facebook strategy is how it can benefit their business.  When used correctly, Facebook can be a great marketing tool.  It can create interest in a brand, add a level of interactivity, and act as an additional information source for customers.  In order to be successful, Muir recommends researching other print service providers to see what makes them successful on Facebook, then creating a plan of action.  He also suggests using the page to interact with your customers, posting often, and including pictures, videos, and blog posts.

Following the advice of Peter Muir, we’ve decided to create our own Facebook page.  You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/XeroxDigitalPrint.  Feel free to stop by and “like” our page to stay up-to-date on the latest Xerox Digital Print news.

How are you using Facebook to market to your customers?

Written by Joel Basa, e-Marketing Manager at Xerox Corporation

In our current business environment, no two days are alike. Think of yesterday? One week ago? One month ago? Are you focusing on the same business priorities for each timeframe? For a successful business, I’m sure the answer is yes AND no. YES to the fact that you’re sticking to your strategy and “staying the course” but NO since you’ve had to adjust some of your resources to look at ways to capture new business opportunities.

Howie Fenton’s Blog Post, “75% of Small Businesses Believe in Cross Media Marketing,” highlights something I’ve been hearing from my collegues and customers alike: the desire to expand services/capabilities but the realization that they need guidance and information on how to best do this.

Implementation challenges come in many forms: resource constraints, infrastructure requirements, technical know-how, business skill gaps, just to name a few. A growing trend in the industry is for businesses to supplement their resources with professional services in specific areas: workflow optimization, color management, business skills and intelligence, implementation of VDP and Trans-Promo.

The addition of these services can help a business quickly come up to speed on areas that will help them reduce their cost and delight their customers. The flexibility of this model helps them get started and lets them build their business by reducing their risk. This model eliminates the need for up-front investment in infrastructure and software before they know how well their customers will receive it.

Looking at your own business, what are the specific areas that you’d like guidance in getting started and help in developing? What services would help you? How are you adjusting your business strategies and resource allocation to address your customer requirements? We’re curious to know.

Written by Joel Basa, e-Marketing Manager at Xerox Corporation

Are you left brained or right brained? Not sure (find out here)? For those of you who have been involved in the process of developing direct marketing campaign, you (and your team) probably were required to exercise both sides of your brain (maybe to your dismay).

I recently read Xerox Business Development Tool “Profiting through Personalization II” (featuring XMPie). It is a detailed resource to executing a successful campaign. It also indentifies 6 critical elements for developing a successful variable data/cross-media campaign in a digital printing environment.

1. Strategy
2. Data Sources
3. Offers
4. Call To Action
5. Creative
6. Measurement

In my experience on the job, I believe it’s critical to not only look at these elements, but to also have the proper personnel that can excel in that particular element. If you buy into the left/right brain theory, selecting individuals whose “brain-sideness” better matches the elements could be beneficial. I’ll give you my take on each element and assign a “side”.

Strategy – Left AND Right
For me, a strategy requires both the science of data analysis coupled with the art of attractive creative and offer selection. When paired correctly, the primary objective (ex. lead generation) can more likely be accomplished. Collaboration between those that are Left and Right brain is critical to overall success of the strategy.

Data Sources – Left
I would consider Data Sources to be a left brain function. Pattern recognition (such as buying habits, geo-targeting, etc) and analytics is critical to developing the proper audiences which in my opinion allows you to map out the offers, creative and measurements for the campaign.

Offers – Left AND Right
Once again, I believe this element, to be selected optimally, must be the combination of the left and the right brain. Analytics are required to identify feasibility of fulfilling an offer but creativity is required to select offers that are considered attractive based on your targeted audience.

Call to Action – Left OR Right
In my opinion, the call to action can be determined by either Left or Right brain thinkers (but I could be convinced otherwise). Regardless, this element needs to be clear and instruct recipients how to respond.

Creative – Right (but don’t forget about the Left)
Developing impactful creative that leverages technology could make the difference between success and failure. For me, it’s clear that creative development would require those with a Right Brain function. However, don’t forget about the logic (Left Brain Function) behind personalization of the piece.

Measurement – Left
There are various ways to measure the success of your campaign, focusing on the data requires analytics and logic, all which fall into Left brain.

Developing successful Direct Mail campaigns, is it better done by Left Brain individuals or Right? Is it more of an art or more of a science? What are your thoughts?

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Written by Barb Anselm, Vice President of the Gil Hatch Center for Customer Innovation at Xerox Corporation

I have the unique privilege to meet with many customers at the Gil Hatch Center for Customer Innovation and discuss what their primary focus is and what area of opportunities they foresee for their business. Over the last several months, it has been interesting to observe more printers focused on workflow and lean document production than ever before.

Dialogue around production workflow has increased over the past few months with workflow being seen as an opportunity that can grow a customer’s business and/or reduce their cost. In my discussions with customers in both in-plant environments and commercial print environments, investing in production workflow is an enabler that streamlines operations and provides print providers better access for their customers. Workflow automation optimizes processes that can result in reduced labor and training…all translating to reduced production cost.

How about lean document production (LDP)? What is it? LDP can be simply put by saying: drive costs down and productivity up. However, LDP is a comprehensive assessment of key operational matters including equipment types and usage, headcount, peak hours, job cycle times and much more to optimize a production environment’s processes. This methodology can manifest itself in value stream mapping or automated document factory but requires an investment of time (and maybe money) by management and the operations staff to properly evaluate their processes.

Workflow and LDP have been hot topics for many of our visiting customers. Even when many printers are reluctant to leave their operations for a day or two, others are attending workshops to make them stronger competitors, better able to serve their customers profitably by looking at production workflow and LDP.

What are your thoughts on production workflow and lean document production? Have you looked at these solutions to differentiate yourself from your competition?